


Clair de Lune, Triste et Beau

by oneunexpected



Category: The Underland Chronicles - Suzanne Collins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-17
Updated: 2016-12-17
Packaged: 2018-09-09 03:30:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8874076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oneunexpected/pseuds/oneunexpected
Summary: Just a little one-shot I wrote during this last week's supermoon about Luxa skygazing. It's also my first ever finished fanfic, so I hope you like it!





	

**Author's Note:**

> I really adore Clair de Lune and the poem associated with it, and I'm sure I'll write many things to it, but this particular one-shot I made was on 12-13-16, the night of a supermoon. It was magnificent- bright as can be, with a cloud cover so thin that you could see the stars easily behind it. It had some strange affect on the light, and the moon had this halo of darker sky framing it. I imagined Luxa observing such a thing, and knew I had to write it.  
> This includes eight stanzas from Paul Verlaine's poem of the same name as the song, and I take no claim to those.  
> I also suggest listening to the piece Clair de Lune while reading this, because it's very pretty! I hope you enjoy!

Luxa had seen many night skies.

In the park gateway amidst the city over her head, where she once told the boy she had once fallen in love with she'd think of him, she'd sit alone, carefully studying the heavens above.

She had seen a sky with no moon, the light from the night sky instead coming from stars, tiny pinpricks of light her eyes strained to see, she had seen a sky that poured water and exploded into bright light, she had seen a sky that was reflected on every inch of a white ground, and she had even seen a sky that turned red and violet and orange and blue and gold, a sky that had given birth to a white-gold sun, setting ablaze the green world around her.

But she had never seen a sky quite like the one she saw that night.

_"Tout en chantant sur le mode mineur_  
_L’amour vainqueur et la vie opportune,_  
_Ils n’ont pas l’air de croire à leur bonheur_  
_Et leur chanson se mêle au clair de lune."_  


The moon, as far away as the lives of the people in the city, as far away as the past, radiated a brilliant white light that she was sure nothing else could replicate, save maybe that sun she had once glimpsed. But this light did not burn her eyes and drive her back underground. It was not the same white as the Bane's coat, either. Simpler. It did not cry for attention.

But it received it any way.

Luxa had seen the orb in fractions, a slice scattered against the night, but this moon was full and complete and _perfect_ , she thought. The strange patterns across its surface did nothing to hinder its beauty. The rest of the night seemed to hold its breath- she could see no stars, no clouds, only a faint film of fog that blanketed the skies. The light cut through it with ease, crowning its source with a circle of darker night than the rest of the atmosphere had to offer, showcasing further its brilliance.

She knew she could not stay long watching it. Her bond waited patiently for her just under the surface, and she'd return home soon. But she let herself be alone with the the heavens for a moment.

She was fascinated by the firmament, but she was lonely in her observations. She wished she could show her grandfather the snow she had witnessed, she wished the startling blasts of sound and light the storm had brought hadn't sent her below, she wished her eyes did not burn in daylight and she could've stayed to witness the sun make its journey. With the moon like memory itself above her, she wished for those she loved to witness the celestial beauty with her.

But instead she sat alone, her head and shoulders the only things visible above the surface of the earth. She felt almost empyrean amongst the backdrop of sky.

_"Au calme clair de lune triste et beau,_  
_Qui fait rêver les oiseaux dans les arbres_  
_Et sangloter d'extase les jets d'eau,_  
_Les grands jets d'eau sveltes parmi les marbres."_  


Some nights she wondered if she could belong to both the deep earth that had raised her and the heavens above. Some nights she wondered if somewhere, a certain boy was watching the same sky as her. Some nights she wondered about those she loved, both gone and still with her, and in what ways she could continue to honor them.

That night she wondered about it all, but in the light of that moon, it was hard to be anything but hopeful. So she allowed her thoughts to wander and wonder, to remember what had gotten her up to that moment and remember where she needed to go from it.

She thought back to the first and only words she had ever spoken above the surface. "This is where I will think of you. You know where I will be."

She felt as if the moonlight reached inside her, reignited her with a purpose she had suppressed. And the she decided she had seen all she needed.

So Luxa smiled at the sky, and then returned to her home within the earth.


End file.
